Wednesday, December 23, 2009

Kry Reviews: Left 4 Dead 2

Left 4 Dead 2 debuted mid-November, some might say in the shadow of Modern Warfare 2, to fairly strong reviews and sales. As I said in my prior thoughts on the demo, I was left with a very positive impression. After ravenously playing through all facets of the game, I can confirm those initial vibes. Left 4 Dead 2 is one of those seemingly few sequels that truly shine as an improvement in every way over its predecessor.

What really stands out is how much the atmosphere has changed over the first game. Where L4D1 heavily utilized darkness, in the process masking bland cityscapes and wilderness, to set the mood, L4D2 uses it sparsely. Most playable levels now happen in daylight, with visibility rarely impeded even on the darker levels. Indeed, the game takes on more of an action dynamic now (instead of emulating the survival horror genre, which was a bit of a stretch anyway).

Now, with all this additional scenery, Valve has labored to make the settings more interesting. Besides the Southern flair adorning everything in the game, each campaign strives to be unique, even telling a little bit of story besides ‘escape the zombies’. Some examples include attempts at stopping the zombie virus, survivor holdouts, or the military being up to no good. Those plots are extraneous of course, not affecting the gameplay; one of the beauties of the L4D series being that it does not need a cinematic storyline or labyrinthine plot.

Along the aforementioned 'action' line, L4D2 is designed to be much more ‘open’ than the original. The premier strategy there was to go from corner to corner throughout each level; very boring. New special infected, most notably the goo-shooting spitter, have been introduced to render this playstyle much riskier. Also, many new panic events force the survivors to stay on the move rather than bunkering down to stop an onslaught. And lastly, a more subtle change is that melee knockback is now limited to further punish sloppy play. These changes make the game much more exciting, though it can be rough for veterans to adjust to. An especially notable example would be the bridge finale, which the survivors must cross under an unrelenting swarm; it is the hardest challenge offered yet from the series.

There are new weapons and items, but no increased inventory space; survivors are forced to be more selective with their options. Each of the main weapon classes (shotgun, rifle, sniper) have had some variants added to help people tailor the guns more to their preference, but ammo piles are more limited so conservation is a key should one want to keep the gun they're most comfortable with. Melee weapons are an effective addition, but replace your pistols and have a bit of a learning curve (especially when dealing with latency). Bile bombs, taking up the projectile spot, lure infected to the target/area thrown at and serve as an excellent utility to get out of a tough spot. There are also: defibrillators to revive dead survivors, adrenaline shots to give a speed/minor health boost, and fiery/explosive ammo packs, which sound cool but are impractical.

L4D2 has some new interesting game modes as well. Realism is an addition to Campaign offered for masochists who find expert too easy. Within Realism, no teammate glows are offered, infected have more health and dead survivors are only revived by defibs or beating a level. Too bad the mode is trivialized by the one-hit kill magnum pistol. Another addition is Scavenge mode, in which survivors and infected duke it out in an attempt to find more gas cans than the other team. This mode fills a niche for shorter time length games. Versus Mode from the first game is back and offers an improved scoring system with less emphasis on surviving the level and health kits used, and more on total distance traveled; also the scoring total per round has been approximately halved. The tighter score really keeps the pace up and the game competitive.

As with the demo, L4D2 suffered from an imperfect launch. The game was slightly delayed, though I had no expectations to be playing at midnight anyway. For the first couple of weeks, achievement tracking was wonky and repeatedly dropped, frustrating players. The game still has some unresolved problems, most notable of which of course is server selection. Never does it seem to be I can find a game where all 4 (or gods help me, 8) players can find an acceptable ping without a couple tries, but hey, it's in a much more playable state than this time last year. My field of view complaints from the demo also still stand, the guns are much too zoomed in to the point of ridiculousness. And then there are the little things that add up: invisible objects, getting stuck, either as a survivor in some corners, or as a charger infected on traffic cones or mailboxes. Perhaps most infuriating is during expert campaign when special zombies cheat and slash you whilst stunned.

But still, what an improvement over the first game, which I can't really imagine booting up again, unless it's playing the levels ported over to L4D2. I'm really interested to see where Valve takes L4D2 with DLC content (and if they charge for it). They recently announced the first update, The Passing, which includes, among other things, a meeting with the beloved cast of the first game. As a final note, if there were to be yearly installments of Left 4 Dead that offer as much as this sequel has, well I’d be happy buying them all!